


The Night Before the Day After

by T Verano (t_verano)



Category: The Sentinel
Genre: M/M, R for language and (not-too-explicit) sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-04
Updated: 2016-04-04
Packaged: 2020-02-28 05:21:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 896
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18749833
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/t_verano/pseuds/T%20Verano
Summary: Just what it says in the title.





	The Night Before the Day After

**Author's Note:**

> **Written for DW Fandomweekly, Theme Prompt:** [#009](https://www.livejournal.com/rsearch/?tags=%23009) \- The Night Before  
> So I checked out Fandomweekly, the new DW multifandom prompt challenge community [](https://unbelievable2.livejournal.com/profile)[](https://unbelievable2.livejournal.com/)**unbelievable2** posted about the other day (or week or something like that), and the current prompt was "the night before" and, well, how could you look at that prompt and not have a title like "The Night Before the Day After" fling itself into your head? And then, you know, have to write the fic to go with the title? :-)
> 
> I've corrected a few typos from the original post on the challenge comm (and added in a couple of tiny changes I thought I'd already made but that I somehow didn't get saved right in my DW posting process, not sure how).

The ceiling is different.

Not different, as in unfamiliar — after all, most of the loft shares the same ceiling, and Blair has fallen asleep on the couch plenty of times and woken to a bleary-eyed view of the corrugated metal overhead. Different, as in he's lying in bed, not on the couch, and the ceiling isn't painted drywall, like it is over his bed.

Which makes perfect sense, since this isn't his bed.

It's Jim's bed.

"Go to sleep, Sandburg."

Jim's bed. With Jim in it. Naked.

Well, naked unless you count having a sheet pulled up to your hips.

Jim's lying on his side, his back turned towards Blair. Which means… Okay, Blair has no idea what it means. He has no idea what Jim usually does after sex, whether this is standard _Jim_ behavior, or if there's, like, a scale, ranging from Octopus Jim (deeply involved, wrapping himself around the other guy — or woman — or whatever) to At Least Sharing Eye Contact Jim (intimate, but casual, and at least _okay_ with the whole concept of just having been, well… intimate with the other guy — or woman — or whatever), to Turn His Back On You Jim (possibly, although not conclusively, attempting to pretend he did _not_ just have sex with his roommate — friend — whatever).

Which — the attempting to pretend thing — would kind of suck.

Except maybe Jim's right. This could change everything. Mutual hand jobs — nakedness, _shared_ nakedness — shared bed —

This _does_ change everything.

Well, no. Blair's felt this way about Jim almost since day one; it doesn't change that, just adds the way Jim's dick looks and the way it feels, hot and hard in Blair's hand, adds the way Jim goes tense and interior and so fucking hot when he comes — just adds those things, and the scar on Jim's hip (from a bullet wound, it looks like) to Blair's Jim Ellison Knowledge Base.

What it does change — what it's going to change, _has_ to change — is how Blair works on the diss. It's going to be harder to keep a detached perspective, studying Jim's senses and drawing conclusions and outlining what needs to go in the thesis, and not letting _this,_ whatever it is, screw things up.

And it changes the ethics of the situation; it has to. They were already dicey (living with your primary — shit, _only_ — subject? not really kosher), and now they're going to be… dicier.

_Shit._

On the other hand, Jim's been far more than just a research subject almost since day one, so maybe this doesn't change things too much.

"Go to _sleep,_ Sandburg."

Oh, God. What if this changes everything with Jim?

Or, worse — or better? maybe it's what Blair should hope for? — it doesn't change anything at all?

Oh, God. He shouldn't have said it, even as a joke, when Jim walked in the door wound up like a coiled spring with leftover adrenaline and obviously (in his nice tight jeans) more than half hard, thanks to that adrenaline. (Blair knows that feeling very well, now; hanging out with Jim on the job is nothing if not adrenaline-inducing.) But he _had_ said it, had said, "Need a hand with that, Jim?" and eyed the bulge at Jim's crotch suggestively, as a joke —

And Jim was supposed to have rolled his eyes, damn it. He was supposed to have said, "Jesus, Chief, you'd hump a table leg if it let you. "Or, "I'm way out of your league, Sandburg." Or "You're unbelievable, Casanova." Or something like that. And then he was supposed to have hit the shower and taken care of things himself, and it was a stupid _joke,_ damn it.

Except Jim had just looked at him, hard — and hot — and finally said, "Yeah, why not," and they…

Well, there'd been groping. And grinding. And moving things upstairs ("Not on the couch, Sandburg; Christ"). And more awkward grinding and groping on the stairs. And shedding clothes (some of them, anyway; the rest stripped off afterwards). Jerking each other off. (And maybe a little preliminary chest licking and nuzzling on Blair's part; Jim's chest was a work of art, with those beautiful, ripped muscles, and that smooth — and slightly sweaty — skin…)

And then there'd been… nothing. Jim rolling over onto his side. Turning his back.

And now saying, "Sandburg," without much patience left in his voice.

Blair sighs. "Yeah. Right. Sleeping," he says.

Or pretending to sleep. That's probably as good as Jim's going to get tonight. Because the ceiling is different, and he's lying naked in Jim's bed with Jim, post _sex,_ and —

— and he has no idea how this is going to change things with Jim, what tomorrow will bring. If they're going to do this again — or do more — or pretend it didn't happen. If Jim feels — can possibly feel — any of the things Blair feels.

Wants. _Needs._

The sheets rustle, and Jim rolls over to lie on his back, with a sigh of his own. "Stop thinking," he says. "Just go to sleep. Please, Chief."

He doesn't say, _We'll figure it out tomorrow,_ or _Feeling's mutual, Chief_. He doesn't say anything else at all.

But he shifts a little until his shoulder is right there, brushing Blair's shoulder and staying there, warm against Blair's skin.

Warm, so warm, so _Jim._ And maybe, _maybe,_ tomorrow will be okay.

It could even be good.  
   
 


End file.
